Fin­an­cial Ac­count­ing

Course content

• Accounting as a form of communication
• Financial statements and Annual Reports
• Double-entry bookkeeping
• Cash basis and accrual basis of accounting
• Inventories and Cost of Goods Sold
• Cash, receivables and short term investments
• Fixed Assets (Tangible & Intangible)
• Goodwill
• Current Liabilities, Present Value, and Long-term liabilities
• Shareholders’ Equity
• Cash Flow Statements
• Financial Statement Analysis
• Current issues in non-financial reporting

Course aim:

This course offers an introduction to financial accounting. Students have the opportunity to learn how to prepare and interpret corporate financial statements.

Relation to a Business or an Institutional Setting: Class discussions are focused around multinational companies in different industries and institutional settings. The tasks of analyzing financial data intend to stimulate students' curiosity about ambiguities in accounting and thereby develop analytical and critical thinking.

Relation to International Business or Economics: A core theme of the course is the financial accounting within multinational corporations.

In relation to Nordic Nine:

Accounting is the language of business that measures, summarizes and communicates business information to various stakeholders. The objective of financial accounting is to provide information that is useful to decision making of existing and potential investors, creditors and other stakeholders. Given that the practice of accounting is supported by several qualitative characteristics such as relevance, faithful representation, comparability, verifiability, timeliness, and understandability with the overall purpose of producing useful information to the users of reporting, this course will develop your skills in the domain of several Nordic Nines:

• NN1 You have deep business knowledge placed in a broad context
• NN2 You are analytical with data and curious about ambiguity
• NN5 You understand ethical dilemmas and have the leadership values to overcome them
• NN6 You are critical when thinking and constructive when collaborating
• NN7 You produce prosperity and protect the prosperity of next generations